Not Nepal

[PNW_D]

While checking out various tomatoes being grown in the nearby community garden, found this interesting one - the plot owner advised he had purchased his plant from Van Dusen's (our local botanical garden) annual plant sale and it was labeled Nepal!! Anyhoo, he was kind enough to share a few tomatoes and my plan is to try this one out indoors over the fall/winter.

I've also included a list of tomato plants offered at the plant sale (see list below) - closest seems to be Tumbler - but this is a much smaller plant.

Taste was non-descript, but may be useful for crossing??

TOMATOES

F1 Hybrid Types Information

Big Beef Best all round beefsteak from Stokes. Big and juicy
Chiquita Sweet pink olive type, very good producer
Gold Nugget Golden cherry. Very sweet. Good for hangers
Juliet Best plum ever. Huge crop of sweet plums, also a good eating tomato. Excellent canner
Moneymaker Long standing. Good producer, average size, old fashioned taste
New Girl Improved. Replaces Early Girl. Good all round size and flavour
Orange Blossom Sweet orange, 4 to 6 oz. tomatoes
Oregon Spring Excellent. Average size
Sungold Awesome golden golf balls. A must grow, very, very sweet
Sweet Million Sweet cherry type that produces tons! Replaces Sweet 100
Sweet Olive Developed for greenhouse T O V (tomato on the vine). Olive shape, sweet and juicy. Does well in gardens
Taxi Sweet average size yellow, low acid
Tumbler Brian Minter’s favourite, a “no brainer”. Always produces red golf balls. Excellent in hangers

Heirloom Tomato Varieties

Black Prince; Cherokee Purple; Eva Purple Ball; Debarao; Green Zebra; Japanese Black Trifele; Matt’s Wild Cherry; Nepal; Sungella; Prudens Purple; Striped German; Red Brandywine; Rose; Moskvich; Striped German; Yellow Brandywine

[bitterwort]

The fruits and trusses look a bit like Geranium Kiss, although the foliage does not. Don't know about taste--none of mine are ripe yet.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Geranium_Kiss

[PNW_D]

Wow, very similar aren't they ..... but on closer inspection the Not Nepal have a waxier look with less green shouldering and no tiny white specks .....

I'll grow out a few to see if there is crossing happening here

Thank you for your reply bitterwort

[Medbury Gardens]

I grew Napal last season and that photo looks nothing like what i had PNW_D,mine were more red in colour and taste i thought was outstanding

[nctomatoman]

Nepal should be round, 6-8 ounces, very solid, deep scarlet red - a bit of radial cracking. Doesn't grow in huge clusters, but maybe 2-4 fruits per cluster - late midseason.

[Medbury Gardens]

I found Napal tends to throw a wide range of different sized fruit also

[carolyn137]

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&s...l=&oq=&gs_rfai=

D, I see it as orange, not red, so would suggest possibly Sungella, Google IMAGES above. Some say gold as does T and M who introduced it, but most say orange if you go to some of the individual sites.and one place that says orange and shows pictures is Johnny's;

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7929-sun-gold-f1.aspx

it's interesting I think that at another site someone said AGG was orange, not gold, and I commented that over the years I've found that many men have trouble distinguishing between the orange/gold/yellow family of colors.

Why just mostly men? probably genetic and stems from the hunter gatherer times when men went out to kill dinner and so good hunters were selected out for their color perception of the red/pink color range in terms of blood and a sucessful kill.

Ok, OK, it's 2 AM and I'm reaching.

But I recently had an interesting chat with the eye surgein who is doing my two cataract surgeries this fall and he was explaining why many think that there was a genetic selection for nearsigtedness that goes back to hunter/gatherer times in terms of those who could see the best to make the kill.

OK, I'm going back to bed now.

[PNW_D]

thank you all for your input,

should have included a ruler in the pic - plant is no more than 8 inches in height, with no leader - just a branch and tomato trusses

here's a pic I just came across that looks very much like the plant in the garden (at least fruit wise)

http://www.hedging.co.uk/acatalog/product_19264.html

Carolyn, the tomatoes in the pic in my first post were not quite ripe, and yes they do look similar to Sungella colouring

I've got a pic of the ripe fruit sliced - will post when I get to my other computer

[kd3]

PNW - I grew Sungella last year, and the plant / fruit look very similar. It was not a large plant, but very good fruit set as I see in your photo. It set orange (not gold, at least to my eyes :-) golf ball size to slightly larger fruit. The colour was similar to Jaune Flamme. Very uniform fruit size and shape, no surface markings of any kind. Quite a nice looking tomato. However, my notes suggest it had good flavour, but a variety of factors can influence flavour. On a side note I have grown out a number of the tomatoes you sent me and will send you my growing notes in a few weeks :-)) kd

[PNW_D]

kd - looking forward to your report

[Wi-sunflower]

From their descriptions -
Tumbler Brian Minter’s favourite, a “no brainer”. Always produces red golf balls. Excellent in hangers

I've grown Tumbler for many years and I've never seen it fruit with anything near "golf ball" size. It's always a nice cherry for me.

But they are also calling Sungold "golf balls" and I don't think anyone would call them anything but average cherry size either.

Personally I would question anything from a "botanic garden" that makes such basic errors as that.

Carol